Angst for the Memories
by ClaireStar
Summary: It's a troubled world, full of pain, misery, and anguish. Also sadness. Is it too much to hope for happiness? (Hint: Yes.) Set in Season 2, of course.
1. Chapter 1

Carol sighed and looked at the man standing at the edge of the camp, sharpening knives. She caught his eye and nodded briefly before turning back to her sewing.

Daryl cursed and stalked off. "I don't have time for this shit."

He was the only one she cared about, and who maybe cared about her, if he wasn't too damaged. _Now she had ruined it. Why did she push him so much? She should have flipped him off instead of throwing herself at him with her nod_.

She fell into a fitful sleep. As always, Sophia was there, haunting her dreams. "Mommy, please help me! I'm all alone here in heaven. It's bad here, too! You let me down, Mommy!" Tears trickled down her lightly freckled face. (Dream Sophia didn't really pull any punches.) Then Sophia turned into a walker and grabbed Carol by the shoulders. Carol pushed Sophia to arm's length, and the two wrestled for control. Carol saw Sophia's mouth getting closer and closer, and felt her daughter squeezing her shoulders as she prepared to consume her...

"Carol! Wake up! You looked like you were having a bad dream." Shane was shaking her gently. He either didn't see, or chose to ignore the tears cascading down her face. "You should head off to bed."

She looked around. She must have dozed off for a few minutes. She walked slowly to her tent and fell into a dreamless sleep, which was a blessing considering what a complete bummer fitful sleep was.

She woke up slowly the next morning. She kept her eyes shut, in order to savor another moment before she was confronted with the harsh reality of her world. As she did, she noticed that there was a sweet smell in the air, almost overwhelming if it hadn't been so delicate and airy. She opened her eyes. Her sleeping bag was covered with hundreds of flowers. _Cherokee roses_. _Maybe she hadn't driven him away._ She smiled slightly, but the effort of forcing her facial muscles into such unfamiliar positions was immense, and she soon settled back into the grim expression she normally wore.

She looked for Daryl at breakfast that morning, but he wasn't there. Had he left them, the camp, her? Her heart sank. She could barely choke down her bowl of kudzu.

The day dragged on as she wondered about the hunter's whereabouts. Why had he left her those flowers? What was he trying to say? She idly scratched at her palms and wondered to herself. _Get with it, Carol_, she chided herself_. You haven't contributed anything to the group today. You've only peeled 50 potatoes, mended 23 shirts and washed four loads of jeans. You're just a burden._ She glanced guiltily at Dale, who was busily sitting on top of the RV, his binoculars around his neck and his hat tipped over his face. She then caught sight of Shane, who had ripped off his shirt and was stalking away from Rick and stalking purposefully towards Lori. Carol was filled with shame. Everyone else was contributing so much. She had to do better, contribute like all the others. _For Sophia._

She glanced at her hands. They were raw and itchy, but not the normal type of raw from all the washing she did - a burning, itchy raw. She debated going to Herschel. After all, others might need his help, and she didn't want to waste his time on her hands, which were rapidly swelling up to the size of catcher's mitts. She thought about it. That was the old Carol, who put everyone ahead of her. The new Carol wouldn't hesitate to ask for help if it meant she could contribute more to the group. She walked into Herschel's office.

It only took Herschel a minute to see what was wrong. He chuckled. "Well, it appears you've come down with a case of poison sumac. It'll clear up in a day or so; but for the moment, you can apply a little calamine."

After she left the farmhouse, she was stopped by Lori. "Are you OK, Carol?"

Carol looked around the porch. "Yes, I just have some poison sumac, of all things."

Lori looked puzzled. "Poison sumac? How could you have gotten that? Have you been in the woods or dealing with strange plants?"

Carol kept silent, not wanting Lori to know about the Cherokee roses. "Uh...no."

She heard a door slam and someone shoved past them. It was Daryl. Had he heard that the Cherokee roses had also included poison sumac? Would he ever talk to her again? _Everything was ruined._

**Next chapter: Daryl has a devastating exchange with Ghost Merle.**


	2. Chapter 2

Daryl walked quickly to his tent and retrieved his crossbow and knife. Without a glance back, he charged into the woods. Hunting would get his mind off things. It always had in the past.

Unfortunately, his peace of mind, such a rarity, was elusive even there.

Instead, he found himself remembering the terrible events of his childhood — one in particular. As a child, he got lost in the woods. When he was climbing a tree, his shirt got caught on a branch and he found himself hanging, suspended by his sleeves, for several days, surviving only on dew and hallucinogenic tree bark. It was then that he developed his lifelong hatred of sleeves, although, as he discussed with the rainbow-colored panda who was hanging next to him, he had to give the people who made the shirt credit for their craftsmanship.

That stupid woman. Why did she torment him, with her big blue eyes and her constant looking at things? He couldn't get her eyes out of his mind. They were like blueberry windows to her soul. _Listen to yourself_, he chided. _You sound like some sort of poet. And sounding like a poet is going to get you killed._

Angrily, he stabbed a nearby tree with a knife repeatedly until he was exhausted. He had to get her out of his system. Go back to the way he was. He looked at the tree. Somehow he had carved out a heart._ Dammit. _

He heard a little chuckle and whirled to see his brother, smiling devilishly at him from up in a tree. "Well, little brother, I see you've gotten yourself into a fine mess."

"No I ain't, you braying jackass." Daryl glared at his brother. He was pretty sure Merle was a hallucination, but no sense in being rude.

"You like that little woman, dontcha? Well, I never thought of you as the type who wanted to settle down."

"I'm not," Daryl spat out. "You don't know what you're talkin' about."

"But I do, little brother. I see you, moonin' after her, coverin' her bed with roses."

"I just had them around and I didn't want them to go to waste. Didn't mean nothin'. Was going to give 'em to Shane, but her tent was closer."

"Well, I have to warn you: she ain't gonna look twice at a man doesn't know the difference between poison sumac and Cherokee rose leaves. No good woman would. She deserves a man who has a good knowledge of botany, and that ain't you."

"Shut UP, Merle." Daryl kicked at the tree.

A walker lurched into view. Daryl dispatched it with a nearby piece of wood, which he smashed repeatedly into the creature's skull. He looked at the wood. Somehow the smashing had carved the remaining wood into a perfect replica of a sleeping fawn. He didn't want it to go to waste, so he figured he'd give it to Carol. _Stupid woman_.

He decided since he wasn't going to get any peace, he would head back to the farm. He walked away to the sound of Merle's laughter. Merle's last words echoed in Daryl's ears: "Better give it up, boy. Ain't no Dixon ever known his flora enough to impress a respectable woman."

He made his way quickly to the farm. When he emerged from the woods, she was waiting for him. "What do you want?"

"I just wanted to let you know…to warn you…that the kudzu we had for breakfast actually contained poison sumac. Everybody's got it pretty bad." She looked up at him, smiling tentatively.

"Huh. I'm not affected by poison sumac. Not that stupid." _Why did he say that?_

She looked at them with her eyes. Why were they so blue? Why did she keep using them to view things like that? She wasn't his problem.

He handed her the wooden fawn carving. "Here. Thought maybe you'd want it."

She carefully wiped the walker brains and blood off on the grass. "It's a fawn."

"I know that." _Did she really think he was that stupid?_

"Well, it's lovely. Thanks for thinking of me."

"Wasn't thinking about you. I was gonna give it to Dale, but you were here, so I figured why not. You aren't special, you know."

She stared at him with an expression he couldn't fathom. Was it amusement? Pain? Confusion? Tenderness? Anger? Mal du siecle? _He really should have taken some sort of course on reading faces_, he thought. These emotions really weren't very close together. _Shouldn't have to puzzle it out all the time_.

She said, more quietly, "Well, thank you anyway." She walked off quickly.

He stared after her. Aw, hell. _He'd ruined everything._


	3. Chapter 3

Carol walked quickly back to her mending. (Or was it her laundry? Either way, she wasn't doing enough of it.) Her encounter with Daryl had given her a new sense of purpose - the only purpose in her otherwise heart-rending life that had been nothing more than a series of painful moments up until then. _She was going to help Daryl Dixon._ She was going to help him see that he was a good man.

She knew he was. Yes, he had called her a stupid bitch, and a dumb whore, an imbecilic doxy, an idiotic trollop, and at one point, a foolish slattern. But any man who had such a mastery of insults was worth saving. It showed a poetic spirit and a reverence for synonyms that she could admire. Besides, she knew that he didn't mean it, since every time he said something mean to her he'd be back in a few hours, dragging to see some sort of natural beauty he thought she'd like. Once it was an aromatic patch of wild mint. Another time it was a flowering crepe myrtle with beautiful pink and grey bark. Recently, though, he had been running out of beautiful things and seemed to be showing her anything that struck his fancy: two brightly colored spiders mating; a cloud that looked like an exhaust pipe for a motorcycle; and yesterday, a bloated squirrel corpse that he had carefully placed a tiny acorn cap on. He was clearly out of his element, and Carol felt for him.

Taking a broom handle from the closet in the RV, she stuck a rubber glove on it. After inspecting it, she stuffed some cotton batting into the glove and returned it to the top of the broom. The next time she was alone and in Daryl's proximity, she would use the glove to tap Daryl on the shoulder and see how he reacted to physical contact. Slowly, she'd work up to real touching. The poor guy needed to be hugged - everyone did — and her 47-step plan would get him there.


	4. Chapter 4

It was over. The farmhouse was burning. He sat on his bike and watched as the flames devoured the barn. It made him think of something else. _Oh, yeah._ It was kind of like when his house burned down with his mother it. He blinked in pain, then scowled.

He was still watching when he heard a woman scream. He looked around quickly and saw it was Carol, running through the fields, walkers close at her heels. His heart leapt as he drove toward her. He almost turned tail and left, however, when he saw her shoes, which were some sort of sandals. _Why the hell is that stupid woman wearing those stupid shoes? How was she ever going to crush skulls with shoes that didn't even have one pair of knives hidden in them? Woman needed some boots. _He stopped himself. Her footwear wasn't his concern, and he wasn't going to make it so.

He said, "Hurry up. Ain't got all day." Hopefully that would reveal how little he cared for her. She still looked happy, why he couldn't figure out. She wrapped her arms around him and they drove away. He wasn't happy about how tightly her arms were wrapped around him, and shouted back, "Quit squeezing me." She complied. He was relieved, then became concerned that she was not hanging on enough. He wasn't going to say anything, though. She was already making his life extremely difficult. Not telling her didn't set right with him, though. He wasn't sure why. He thought about it, then said to her tersely, "Hold on tighter than that. You fall off, you might damage the bike. That's MERLE's bike. He's the only family I've got. NOT you." She carefully increased her hold on him. That was more like it, but he was still going to spend the whole trip worrying that her arms stayed in the right place. After all, those scars on his back were only two shirts and a leather jacket away from her. If she accidentally ended up with her hands under his shirt, which was highly possible, he imagined, she'd probably look at him with those Cerulean eyes, carefully hiding her pity. _Cerulean._ It was like he had some sort of magical thesaurus about her eye color. _What the hell was happening here_?

Suddenly he remembered one of his favorite albums, Danzig's **_Satan's Bible and Color Thesaurus_** Well, that was a relief.

* * *

Carol felt elated. She was sitting on the back of Daryl's bike, just narrowly having evaded being torn apart by walkers. She had escaped, and she knew she wanted to live, for the first time since Sophia died. She felt sorrier than ever for the man she was riding with; he was so tender-hearted. Look at how he had saved her from death - that was what a decent human being did. She made a mental note to remind him of that if he ever felt down. _Not letting people die = good person._


	5. Chapter 5

"I can't be what you want, Carol!" Daryl shouted at her. "Can't you see I'm damaged?"

Carol finally lost her temper. "Big deal, so you're damaged. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt."

Daryl looked at her in shock. _What was she talking about?_ Yes, Carol did have a T-shirt that said, "I'm damaged" on the front, and yes, the tattoo on her wrist said, "Damaged goods," but was she trying to tell him that she was damaged also? _Could that be why they gravitated to each other? _

Carol rolled her eyes. Sometimes he was just transparent. _And 5-4-3-2-1_, she thought.

She watched as he stalked off into the woods, but was surprised when he turned around and walked towards her purposefully.

He stood toe to toe with her, closer than they had ever been except when he grabbed her to stop her from running to Sophia after she came out of the barn. Their eyes met. He raised his hand and jabbed his index finger angrily in her face. "You know what, lady? You ain't a stupid bitch after all."

She nodded imperceptibly.

They both looked at each other awkwardly.

"Well, I'm gonna walk angrily into the woods now," he said.

She blinked in acknowledgment, then looked at her feet. "I've got things to darn."

_Progress_, she thought.

She watched him walk off. As if he could sense it, he turned and flipped her off.

_Baby steps_, she thought.


	6. Chapter 6

Carol was pleased. She had slowly gotten Daryl used to making eye contact with her at least once a day. She found that the best way to do this was to take a piece of food from his plate at dinner, then, while he was watching her in surprise, hold it up so that it was between her eyebrows, about an inch from her face. His eyes would follow the food and then end up looking in hers. She would use the excuse that she thought she saw a bug. The fact that he didn't protest was a sign to her that he didn't mind.

As he grew more civilized, Carol found herself with a new concern: Andrea. Andrea had several times shown pointed interest in Daryl. Once she called him an inbred illiterate hillbilly in front of the entire group, challenging him to a spelling contest. Daryl seemed upset by that, but it was pretty clear to Carol that Andrea was being flirtatious in her own way. Recently Andrea had practically thrown herself at Daryl by shooting him in the head. No one else saw Andrea's maneuver for what it was, a desperate ploy to get Daryl's attention.

Carol knew she didn't have a claim on Daryl, but she didn't like the idea of Andrea and Daryl being together. He deserved happiness, but Andrea seemed to be a very angry woman, what with her constant shooting of people. He wouldn't get in touch with his humanity or self-esteem the way he would with Carol. He would never learn the joys of companionable silence with Andrea, or quiet contemplation, or hushed meditation, for that matter.

She comforted herself ultimately with the fact that Daryl's complete lack of interest in bathing would be a deterrent, even in this hygiene-challenged environment where people were used to everyone smelling kind of ripe. Daryl's habit of rolling in the mud by the pond every morning had seemed strange and offputting to her before, but now she was grateful for it. Also, Carol had always been fond of the comic strip "Peanuts," and when Daryl walked around in his cloud of dirt, it reminded her of Pigpen, one of her favorite characters. _A **sexy** Pigpen_, she thought.

She stopped herself. She shouldn't be objectifying Daryl that way. They were just friends, and besides he would never be interested in her that way. She picked up her mending or darning or whatever it was that she was doing. _Back to work_.


End file.
